Away from Home
by vikung-fu
Summary: AU-ish, Clone Wars references, Droids-centric: Future speeder racer, Thall Joben receives a curious visitor with an interest in the two droids he has recently acquired.


**AWAY FROM HOME**

He felt the bitter winds of the salt plains rush in through the open door, playing across the exposed skin of his neck and the shaven surface of the right side of his head. Thall Joben's hair was reflective of the styles and fashions of distant Nar Shaddaa's Electric Town, a severe undercut that rendered the scalp almost bald and his long red-gold hair swept over onto the left side.

It was a style popularised by the rise of the music group Pris and the Replicants, and one that had quickly spiralled out from the disproportionately well-regarded Electric Town culture to as far as distant worlds such as Tatooine and Ingo.

"Store's closed," he called out over his shoulder, not bothering to look back, "if you've got a problem with your speeder, come back tomorrow."

At worst, the presence he sensed in the open doorway would be a potential customer but, despite his spiel, Thall suspected that it was more than likely his friend and business partner, Jord Dusat, a man with a talent like no other for misplacing his speeder keys.

"Actually, it's not a speeder I came by for," a playful female voice called from the open door, "I'm more interested in the two droids you picked up this afternoon in the salt flats."

Thall's head snapped up from the open panel on his speeder, the _White Witch_, quickly turning to look at the two droids he had luckily discovered whilst out racing with Jord and then over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of the cloaked figure.

He stood up swiftly, turning to face her, his body tense.

"What are they to you?" he asked sharply, "Listen, if you're their former master, then I can explain…"

The woman smiled and raised her hands, lifting back her cowl to reveal a red complexion, two trailing head-tails and sparkling blue eyes.

"Don't panic, they're not _my_ droids. I just want to take a look at them."

She flashed a wide grin full of sharp teeth and, without waiting for his response, quickly stepped past him and around the _Witch_ to where the squat astromech droid and its golden protocol droid counterpart waited, the latter twitching in decidedly nervous silence.

C-3PO's optical sensors followed her as she crouched down before the other droid and reached out towards it.

R2-D2 let out a low, whistling warning and began to back away, its rotund body wobbling with the movement as it lifted one leg after the other. With a clang, it hit the back wall of the garage.

"Hey there, little one, no need to be nervous," the young woman said in a soft voice, "I just want to see if you're carrying some kind of message for me…"

"Oh, good evening, madam, my name is C-3PO, human/cyborg relations…" the golden droid began, moving unnecessarily at the waist so as to look between the young woman crouched down before it and its new master.

"Hi, 3PO," the woman said, with an air of familiarity, "how are you?"

"I'm perfectly fine thank you, mistress, ah…oh, I don't appear to know your name, I'm afraid…"

The young woman looked up, smiling again.

"You can call me Ani," she offered.

"In that case, I'm perfectly fine, Mistress Ani," the protocol droid completed.

She reached out for R2, her fingers brushing the worn, dented metal of its dome and tracing down toward the two horizontal bars of grey above the machine's central control panel. The droid murmured softly again and Thall felt himself becoming increasingly impatient with the evasive stranger.

"Listen here, _Ani_, or whatever your name is, I don't think I appreciate…"

His words died in his throat as, with a reluctant warble, R2's projector lens flickered. A pale, blue hologram of a crouching Imperial Stormtrooper, his helmet tucked under one arm and his hair shaved to dyed blond stubble appeared on the grated, metal floor before him.

'_If you're smart, you'll delete this before I even finish this sentence,_' the trooper whispered in a hushed voice, his lips a tight smile, '_but I'm betting you'll be too curious to do that, in which case, I want you to listen closely._

'_The general ain't dead, youngling. I know you're going to have mixed feelings about that but the general ain't the kind of man to let a little bit of lava get him down. We're not supposed to call him 'the general' anymore, apparently he's all Lord this or Lord that but I can tell he don't buy that anymore than we do. He don't like to show it but underneath all that, he's still the same man._

'_I can't rightly speak for General Kenobi, the general don't like to speak about him but my money, if I were a betting man, would be that he's still alive and he's still out there somewhere. Experience like that man had doesn't teach you to give up easily._'

He turned and glanced over his shoulder.

'_Listen, youngling, I can't say much more but if you get this message then I wish you all the best. It's a blasted Hutt-eat-Hutt galaxy out there but I know you're one tough little hombre. You'll hold out, I've got no doubts about that. If you're looking for direction, my best advice would be_ don't. _Stay away from everything and everyone you used to know, keep your head down and mind your own business. I reckon that's what the general would tell you if he knew you were out there too._'

The trooper smiled sadly and lifted up the helmet, his face disappearing beneath a masque of white plastoid armour.

'_Stay cool, youngling, don't let the bastards grind you down. Over and out_.'

The hologram flickered and died, leaving a despondent emptiness in its wake. For a moment longer, the young woman remained crouched down before the droid and then, with a simple override key tapped directly into the lower access panel of the R2 unit, she deleted the message.

Forcing a smile to her lips, the young Togruta rose up and turned to face Thall.

"You mind telling me what the blazes that was all about?" he demanded, "Wasn't that an Imperial Stormtrooper in that message…?"

The woman gently waved a hand before him as she passed and, for the second time that day, Thall's words died in his throat.

"These are not the droids I'm looking for," she said softly.

Thall stared blankly back at her.

"These are not the droids you're looking for," he repeated, as if in a dream.

She reached the door, paused and turned to look back at the forlorn figure of R2-D2 and the bewildered protocol droid. She smiled again and pulled up her hood, departing into the all consuming storms and bitter winds.

Behind her, Thall Joben scowled and, with the nagging sensation that he had just missed something incredibly important, the young man looked about his cluttered workshop.

The sparkle of the light-sword's handle left amongst his other tools by a previous customer caught his eye and his scowl darkened.

If he never saw another desert crazy in his life, it would be too soon.

Without sparing the events another thought, he turned his attention back towards the _Witch_ and his future career as a racing champion.


End file.
